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The Democrats Delivered One Thing in the Past 100 Days: Disappointment

The time has come to bid farewell to a moribund party that lacks imagination, courage and gusto

The distinctive feature of these bleak times is the lack of institutional capacity on the left – the absence of a political party that swings free of Wall Street and speaks to the dire circumstances of poor and working people. As the first 100 days of the plutocratic and militaristic Trump administration draw to a close, one truth has been crystal clear: the Democratic party lacks the vision, discipline and leadership to guide progressives in these turbulent times.

The neoliberal vision of the Democratic party has run its course. The corporate wing has made it clear that the populist wing has little power or place in its future. The discipline of the party is strong on self-preservation and weak on embracing new voices. And party leaders too often revel in self-righteousness and self-pity rather than self-criticism and self-enhancement. The time has come to bid farewell to a moribund party that lacks imagination, courage and gusto.

The 2016 election – which Democrats lost more than Republicans won – was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The unfair treatment of Bernie Sanders was but the peak of the iceberg. In the face of a cardboard Republican candidate equipped with pseudo-populist rhetoric and ugly xenophobic plans, the Democratic party put forward a Wall Street-connected and openly militaristic candidate with little charisma.

The crucial issues of a $15 minimum wage and saying no to fracking, no to TPP, no to Israeli occupation and yes to single-payer healthcare were pushed aside by the corporate wing and the populist wing was told to quit whining or take responsibility for the improbable loss.

The monumental collapse of the Democratic Party – on the federal, state and local levels – has not yielded any serious soul-wrestling or substantive visionary shifts among its leadership. Only the ubiquitous and virtuous Bernie remains true to the idea of fundamental transformation of the party – and even he admits that seeking first-class seats on the Titanic is self-deceptive and self-destructive.

We progressives need new leadership and institutional capacity that provides strong resistance to Trump’s vicious policies, concrete alternatives that matter to ordinary citizens and credible visions that go beyond Wall Street priorities and militaristic policies. And appealing to young people is a good testing ground.

Even as we forge a united front against Trump’s neofascist efforts, we must admit the Democratic Party has failed us and we have to move on. Where? To what? When brother Nick Brana, a former Bernie campaign staffer, told me about the emerging progressive populist or social democratic party – the People’s party – that builds on the ruins of a dying Democratic party and creates new constituencies in this moment of transition and liquidation, I said count me in.

And if a class-conscious multi-racial party attuned to anti-sexist, anti-homophobic and anti-militaristic issues and grounded in ecological commitments can reconfigure our citizenship, maybe our decaying democracy has a chance. And if brother Bernie Sanders decides to join us – with many others, including sister Jill Stein and activists from Black Lives Matter and brown immigrant groups and Standing Rock freedom fighters and betrayed working people – we may build something for the near future after Trump implodes.

Comments

April 28, 2017 - 10:46pm — David Friedman (not verified)
I agree with Cornel West on the need for a new party. Of course in such a brief article there are many aspects that he could not cover. I'll touch on some of them here, also too briefly.
1. A new party must be democratic and free from corporate funding. Without democracy, a party cannot truly represent the multitude and variety of peoples that it is based on.
2. A new party must have a certain amount of structure, even if it is a partially decentralized network type of structure, which I think would be the best approach. Without some structure you can't have a deep form of democracy because decisions end up being made by a few leaders and a layer of "office staff." I put some emphasis on democratic structure because it is a serious problem for the existing movements. To take one example, the lack thereof was one of the factors in the rapid decline of the Occupy Movement and the inordinate influence of a relative handful of nihilistic people who turned large demonstrations into much smaller skirmishes with police. A movement that had enormous sympathy and public attention throughout the country virtually disappeared within a year through a combination of provocation and police attacks, though some of its ideas have persisted, such as the "99 percent" slogan.
3. A new party must have the ability to forge a meaningful political program and vision for the country, which requires foresight and (again) democratic structure. Such a program would have to be relatively broad if the new party is to truly represent the current thinking of its natural constituency. It is most likely that the early organizers and activists of any new party will be fairly radical, since those are the kind of people who are most willing to break with the Democratic Party. However, the early organizers would not be building a party for themselves alone, but a vehicle for a much larger constituency. The essential thing is a break from the corporate parties, from the militaristic outlook that dominates American politics, and from corporate profit as the highest economic priority of the country. Also essential is the concept of solidarity among working people, minorities and all groups that are singled out for oppression, whether by government or bigots. This is the diametric opposite of so-called Identity Politics, which emphasizes the divisions and tends to pit one group against another, sometimes in a subtle way. Within a broad conceptual framework many specific issues and demands can become part of the party's program, but not just as an undifferentiated grocery shopping list with everybody lobbying for his or her favorite nostrum.
4. Many people reject this approach out of hand on the grounds that such a new party could not win elections or change the country overnight. The true test of a new party will be its ability to grow, not only in numbers, but in influence, through the force of its ideas and in the context of the decay of the Democratic Party and the arrogance of the Republican Party. Even if the main immediate result is to force the Democratic Party to make some concessions in order to undermine the new party, that would still be a valuable step, more so than dissipating our efforts in yet another futile attempt to reform or "take over" one of the two parties of the American ruling class.
5. Then there is "the argument from desperation" that nothing should be done that weakens the Democratic Party because then we get the Republicans. The fundamental problem with that line of thought is that it is the Democratic Party itself that lays much of the groundwork for Republican victories, by pushing corporate and militaristic ideology and failing to deliver the goods to the many constituencies who vote Democratic because they see no alternative. A case can be made that the main cause of Donald Trump's victory was Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment that backed her, even when there was a far superior alternative available in the person of Bernie Sanders and his movement. She ran on an implicit program of "more of the same" and there were too many desperate Americans who simply could not accept that, so they chose to believe the promises of a demagogic billionaire.
Much more can and should be said about all this, but I'll let it go at that.